Showing posts with label Old Mold. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Old Mold. Show all posts
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Old Mold Proud Arab Mare
I found this old mold PAM at COuntryside Antiques in the fall but left her behind. Her ear is chipped and I misread the price tag as $25. Well, that "2" was a very sloppy dollar sign, I discovered on another trip down! She was only $5! Home with me she came!
Old Mold Proud Arabian Mare in alabaster, #8, 1958-1959, $5, Countryside Antiques, 12/2014.
She needs a good bath in Dawn, but she'll clean up fine!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Old Mold Stallion
(from Breyer History Diva, 2009)
The Old Mold Mare is easily the most popular topic on this blog: anytime I write about her, I get a steady stream of appreciative comments and e-mail. But not a lot of love or attention has been given to her companion, the Old Mold Stallion.
I’m not referring to the Family Arabian Stallion that he became, but the model he was before.
There isn’t much difference between an Old Mold Stallion and a run-of-the-mill Family Arabian Stallion. Except for the extensive remodeling of his male anatomy (which didn’t occur until much later) most of the changes that were made to the model now known as the FAS were subtle, and probably the result of mold maintenance over its 50 year history.
The only thing that really distinguishes an Old Mold Stallion from an FAS is the mold mark: the FAS has one, and the Old Mold Stallion does not. Some Old Mold Stallions do have a very partial mold mark - you can just make out the “MOL” from the word MOLDING, but that’s about it.
Old Mold Stallions come in the same variety of colors that the Old Mold Mares and Foals do: Alabaster, Bay, Appaloosa and Woodgrain. Most hobbyists don't go out of their way to add Old Mold Stallions to their collections, though, so it's hard to tell if any one of these colors is more rare than the others; if they do happen to have one, it's either by sheer accident, or because he happened to tag along with the rest of his family.
There's some evidence that the Old Mold Stallion is probably a little more common than the Old Mold Mares and Foals. While he's very similar to the large Hagen-Renaker Amir, the match is not quite as close as the Mare and Foal are to Zara and Zilla. Unlike the Mare and Foal, who were yanked from production until suitable replacements were created, the FAS was probably allowed to continue production uninterrupted throughout 1959 and 1960.
The Old Mold Stallion probably premiered in 1959, about a year after the Old Mold Mare and Foal; I often wonder why that was. Was he an afterthought? Cash flow issues? Did they have problems with the mold? Or did they catch wind of the impending trouble brewing in California, and make some preemptive changes to the mold?
That's all speculation: there's no evidence for any of it. It could have been something as simple as a strong sales report: if the Mare and Foal are selling really well, just imagine if we added the Stallion!
But how does one go about acquiring this creature, especially on the Internet, where photographs and descriptions of dubious quality are the norm, if not the rule, and the presence or absence of a mold mark is rarely noted?
There are a few subtle distinctions in the paint jobs that can provide clues. Alabasters tends to have lipliner, and (more rarely) muscle shading; Appaloosas have the fine speckle spots, butt blankets and charcoal gray legs with black hooves; Bay usually have lipliner and eyewhites.
(Your eyes are not deceiving you: this fellah really does have factory shaded "boy parts"!)
It's no guarantee, of course: the Stallion never ceased production, and the paint jobs were never completely consistent. I've owned Old Mold Alabaster and Appaloosa Stallions with paint jobs indistinguishable from a run-of-the-mill FAS counterparts. If you do notice these characteristics in a model-of-interest, though, it'd definitely be worth your time to investigate him further.
The Old Mold Mare is easily the most popular topic on this blog: anytime I write about her, I get a steady stream of appreciative comments and e-mail. But not a lot of love or attention has been given to her companion, the Old Mold Stallion.
I’m not referring to the Family Arabian Stallion that he became, but the model he was before.
There isn’t much difference between an Old Mold Stallion and a run-of-the-mill Family Arabian Stallion. Except for the extensive remodeling of his male anatomy (which didn’t occur until much later) most of the changes that were made to the model now known as the FAS were subtle, and probably the result of mold maintenance over its 50 year history.
The only thing that really distinguishes an Old Mold Stallion from an FAS is the mold mark: the FAS has one, and the Old Mold Stallion does not. Some Old Mold Stallions do have a very partial mold mark - you can just make out the “MOL” from the word MOLDING, but that’s about it.
Old Mold Stallions come in the same variety of colors that the Old Mold Mares and Foals do: Alabaster, Bay, Appaloosa and Woodgrain. Most hobbyists don't go out of their way to add Old Mold Stallions to their collections, though, so it's hard to tell if any one of these colors is more rare than the others; if they do happen to have one, it's either by sheer accident, or because he happened to tag along with the rest of his family.
There's some evidence that the Old Mold Stallion is probably a little more common than the Old Mold Mares and Foals. While he's very similar to the large Hagen-Renaker Amir, the match is not quite as close as the Mare and Foal are to Zara and Zilla. Unlike the Mare and Foal, who were yanked from production until suitable replacements were created, the FAS was probably allowed to continue production uninterrupted throughout 1959 and 1960.
The Old Mold Stallion probably premiered in 1959, about a year after the Old Mold Mare and Foal; I often wonder why that was. Was he an afterthought? Cash flow issues? Did they have problems with the mold? Or did they catch wind of the impending trouble brewing in California, and make some preemptive changes to the mold?
That's all speculation: there's no evidence for any of it. It could have been something as simple as a strong sales report: if the Mare and Foal are selling really well, just imagine if we added the Stallion!
But how does one go about acquiring this creature, especially on the Internet, where photographs and descriptions of dubious quality are the norm, if not the rule, and the presence or absence of a mold mark is rarely noted?
There are a few subtle distinctions in the paint jobs that can provide clues. Alabasters tends to have lipliner, and (more rarely) muscle shading; Appaloosas have the fine speckle spots, butt blankets and charcoal gray legs with black hooves; Bay usually have lipliner and eyewhites.
(Your eyes are not deceiving you: this fellah really does have factory shaded "boy parts"!)
It's no guarantee, of course: the Stallion never ceased production, and the paint jobs were never completely consistent. I've owned Old Mold Alabaster and Appaloosa Stallions with paint jobs indistinguishable from a run-of-the-mill FAS counterparts. If you do notice these characteristics in a model-of-interest, though, it'd definitely be worth your time to investigate him further.
A History of Breyer
(from Bryer History Diva, 2009)
So when I tell them that the hobby has been around in some form, in the U.S., since the late 1950s, I get the usual eye-rolls and incredulous looks. So I'll go to my archives and pull out a couple of pieces of documentation to straighten out the wiseacre, including this neat article from the September, 1961 issue of Western Horseman:
Yup, that's an Old Mold Mare they are holding. There's a App FAM and several H-R minis visible, and that's a pot metal Western Horse on the shelf. A favorite quote from the brief article beneath:
“The miniature saddle maker's artistic talents also include pencil sketching and refinishing horse statutes in such colors as real animals.”
Unlike Breyer History, we actually have quite a lot of Hobby History ephemera out there. Prior to the Internet, the hobby was a paper-intensive affair: letters, newsletters, photo shows, the occasional newspaper or magazine articles brought us together and bound us together. I can remember stalking the mailbox on a daily basis, anxiously waiting for the next precious communique from the Model Horse Universe. A big, fat envelope with my name on it = much happiness!
As a student of history, I'm also interested in saving the hobby's collective history, not just of Breyer Horses. Aside from the research opportunities it would provide (i.e. being able to track when certain terms were invented, when color and mold changes occurred, etc.) it'd also provide us some standing and credibility to the Outside World. Showing the Outside World that we've been around for about fifty years will go quite a ways towards taking us more seriously, and proving that we're not a fad, and we're not going away.
Besides, other avocations with papery origins, most notably Science-Fiction and Comic Book Fandom, have made vocal and visible efforts to preserve their history and ephemera, so why not us? Science-fiction fandom just celebrated its 80th anniversary, in fact! (And some are celebrating by trying to find out what happened to First Fandom's first club president. Cool!)
There's just one problem: most hobbyists shared my sentimental attachment to this paper, and are loathe to give it up.
I've been trying for some time now to save the physical remnants of our collective history and create at least the rudiments of a hobby archive. I've made a few excellent recoveries and discoveries, but most hobbyists don't want to surrender the tangible evidence of their fondest childhood memories. Then there's the contentious question of who becomes the repository: everyone who has a bigger than average pile of stuff wants to be home of THE archive (including me!)
I first became involved on Blab when my name came up in a potential hobby history project; our initial efforts didn't get very far, for a variety of reasons. The topic came up again, in connection with the epic “future of the hobby” thread, and it looks like we might get a little bit further along this time. For one thing, a Facebook page has already been created to help collect and coordinate our collective efforts, and begin the effort to collect oral histories. A link to that page has been provided in my Links of Interest, to the right.
Next post – back to plain ol' Breyer History. Promise!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Old Mold Palomino Mare
(Breyer History Diva, 2009.)
There’s always been a lot of information of dubious quality circulating in the world of Breyer model horse history. This is due to a lack of existing documentation, the sometimes less-than-stellar quality of material published (especially online), and the utter hugeness of the topic (hundreds of models, some in dozens of colors, and some of those colors with multiple variations and releases!)
In the absence of reliable or consistent information, legends grow. And boy, there are a lot of them. I wince at some of the want lists I see published on MH$P, full of models that are little more than artifacts of bad research, rumor and wishful thinking. Perhaps this Urban Legend feature will help some of you cross off a few unattainable things from those want lists.
I won’t even try to cover the ones I don’t have any reliable information on; where I have an opinion stand in for a fact (usually in order to make a plausible argument or deduction,) I’ll try to make that clear, too.
Since we were all abuzz about the Old Mold Mare this week, the topic of my first Breyer Urban Legend seemed pretty obvious: the Gloss Palomino Old Mold Mare!
The original Old Mold Mare and Foal were made in four colors. In ascending order of rarity, they would be Alabaster, Bay, Gray Appaloosa and Woodgrain. (Alabasters are relatively easy to find; Woodgrains, not so much.)
It was assumed, back in the dark days of Breyer History research, that the Old Mold Mare and Foal came in the same assortment of colors that the Family Arabian Mare and Foal did. They were, after all, their replacements, right? Marney Walerius (the original Breyer history diva) thought so, and listed them in her reference guide published in early 1992. The fact that nobody had one in their collection, or had found any pictures or documentation of them - well, that just meant they were rare. Really, really rare.
Now we know better: the Palomino and Charcoal weren’t even introduced until 1961 - well after the mare and foal were switched over to their Family Arabian versions. There might have been a test color or two made back then - the Western Horse and Pony were solid sellers in gloss palomino throughout the 1950s, so it was in their repertoire. But there’s no known physical evidence that the Old Mold Mare or her Foal were ever formally released in that color.
But as is almost always the case with Breyer history, the story isn't quite that simple.
In the early 1970s, when Breyer was considering bringing back the Old Mold Mare and Foal as companions to the newly introduced Proud Arabian Stallion, there was at least one test color Gloss Palomino Proud Arabian Mare made. Here’s the picture I have, from Marney Walerius’s photo album:
(No, I don’t know her current owner or whereabouts. Sorry!)
There are test color reproductions of other Old Mold colors on the newly retooled mare in this album - Alabaster, Bay and Gray Appaloosa, at least - so I’m guessing that she was created to duplicate another member of the assumed pantheon. Instead of replicating an actual production piece, however, they ended up creating a legend.
It’s possible a few others were made - test colors from that era were rarely unique. (There’s another future debunkable legend!) And Marney had almost free rein to paint whatever she wanted in the Chicago factory until the move to New Jersey in the 1980s, so she could have conceivably created more of the pretty little lady pictured above. I have no concrete evidence one way or another, though.
And as for how we’d define the models Marney made on her own, for her own devices - true tests, mini-SRs, factory customs, or something else? That’s another very lengthy topic entirely.
There’s always been a lot of information of dubious quality circulating in the world of Breyer model horse history. This is due to a lack of existing documentation, the sometimes less-than-stellar quality of material published (especially online), and the utter hugeness of the topic (hundreds of models, some in dozens of colors, and some of those colors with multiple variations and releases!)
In the absence of reliable or consistent information, legends grow. And boy, there are a lot of them. I wince at some of the want lists I see published on MH$P, full of models that are little more than artifacts of bad research, rumor and wishful thinking. Perhaps this Urban Legend feature will help some of you cross off a few unattainable things from those want lists.
I won’t even try to cover the ones I don’t have any reliable information on; where I have an opinion stand in for a fact (usually in order to make a plausible argument or deduction,) I’ll try to make that clear, too.
Since we were all abuzz about the Old Mold Mare this week, the topic of my first Breyer Urban Legend seemed pretty obvious: the Gloss Palomino Old Mold Mare!
The original Old Mold Mare and Foal were made in four colors. In ascending order of rarity, they would be Alabaster, Bay, Gray Appaloosa and Woodgrain. (Alabasters are relatively easy to find; Woodgrains, not so much.)
It was assumed, back in the dark days of Breyer History research, that the Old Mold Mare and Foal came in the same assortment of colors that the Family Arabian Mare and Foal did. They were, after all, their replacements, right? Marney Walerius (the original Breyer history diva) thought so, and listed them in her reference guide published in early 1992. The fact that nobody had one in their collection, or had found any pictures or documentation of them - well, that just meant they were rare. Really, really rare.
Now we know better: the Palomino and Charcoal weren’t even introduced until 1961 - well after the mare and foal were switched over to their Family Arabian versions. There might have been a test color or two made back then - the Western Horse and Pony were solid sellers in gloss palomino throughout the 1950s, so it was in their repertoire. But there’s no known physical evidence that the Old Mold Mare or her Foal were ever formally released in that color.
But as is almost always the case with Breyer history, the story isn't quite that simple.
In the early 1970s, when Breyer was considering bringing back the Old Mold Mare and Foal as companions to the newly introduced Proud Arabian Stallion, there was at least one test color Gloss Palomino Proud Arabian Mare made. Here’s the picture I have, from Marney Walerius’s photo album:
(No, I don’t know her current owner or whereabouts. Sorry!)
There are test color reproductions of other Old Mold colors on the newly retooled mare in this album - Alabaster, Bay and Gray Appaloosa, at least - so I’m guessing that she was created to duplicate another member of the assumed pantheon. Instead of replicating an actual production piece, however, they ended up creating a legend.
It’s possible a few others were made - test colors from that era were rarely unique. (There’s another future debunkable legend!) And Marney had almost free rein to paint whatever she wanted in the Chicago factory until the move to New Jersey in the 1980s, so she could have conceivably created more of the pretty little lady pictured above. I have no concrete evidence one way or another, though.
And as for how we’d define the models Marney made on her own, for her own devices - true tests, mini-SRs, factory customs, or something else? That’s another very lengthy topic entirely.
Woodgrains - Rare
(Breyer Diva History, 2009.)
All Woodgrains are not created equal: all are scarce, but some are more scarce than others. And defining what is rare, and what is common, isn’t as simple as you might think.
Here’s a good example: the apparent popularity and longevity of the Ranchcraft Woodgrain Running Mare and Foal Lamp may have skewed our perception of the original Mare and Foal’s rarity. The original, prelamp Woodgrain Running Mare and Foal were made for a relatively brief period of time: from 1962 through 1965, a year or so less than much more desirable pieces such as the Rearing Mustang or Five-Gaiter.
An awfully high percentage of Woodgrain Running Mares and Foal I’ve seen for sale are former lamp pieces: their drill holes and semi-gloss finishes are usually a dead giveaway. True, regular run pre-lamp Woodgrain Running Mares and Foals are fairly scarce, and surprisingly don’t command the kind of prices that that kind of rarity usually brings.
Part of it is the sex appeal: the placid, sweet Running Mare and Foal don’t elicit the same visceral response the wild and studly Mustang does. The fan club for these pieces just isn’t that large. They’re not so rare - like the original regular run Buckskins - that their very elusiveness creates demand, either. They’re not the kind of things a "high spot" collector would seek out.
And the model horse market, at this moment and in this economy, seems to be driven primarily by a small coterie of "high spot" collectors. "High spot" is a term I’ve borrowed from the world of book collecting; it refers to collectors who specialize exclusively on rare, expensive and historically significant pieces, as opposed to collectors who seek to build a more well-rounded or representative collection.
True "high spot" Woodgrains would be items like the Old Mold Mare and Foal, Elephant, and Fury - items so rare and so scarce that virtually no documentation exists for them. The Old Mold Mare and Foal, Elephant, and Fury all easily fetch four-digit figures - and except for the Old Mold Mare’s cameo in the 1960 Montgomery Wards Christmas Catalog, there is a total absence of evidence for their existence, other than, you know, their actual existence.
The Old Mold Mare and Foal were regular run items, albeit extremely short-term ones, made in one or two batches before the mold switchover ca. 1959-60. (Until recently, it was speculated that the Woodgrain Old Mold Foal didn’t even exist, but we know better, now.) Others, such as the Buffalo and Polled Hereford Bull, appear to be special run exclusives for Dunning Industries’ Ranchcraft Lamp line.
But for pieces such as the Elephant and the Fury, I have no idea. My guess would be that they were extremely short-term regular runs, a la the Buckskin Running Mare and Foal, but that’s pure speculation on my part. Until more evidence surfaces, that’s all we have at this point.
All Woodgrains are not created equal: all are scarce, but some are more scarce than others. And defining what is rare, and what is common, isn’t as simple as you might think.
Here’s a good example: the apparent popularity and longevity of the Ranchcraft Woodgrain Running Mare and Foal Lamp may have skewed our perception of the original Mare and Foal’s rarity. The original, prelamp Woodgrain Running Mare and Foal were made for a relatively brief period of time: from 1962 through 1965, a year or so less than much more desirable pieces such as the Rearing Mustang or Five-Gaiter.
An awfully high percentage of Woodgrain Running Mares and Foal I’ve seen for sale are former lamp pieces: their drill holes and semi-gloss finishes are usually a dead giveaway. True, regular run pre-lamp Woodgrain Running Mares and Foals are fairly scarce, and surprisingly don’t command the kind of prices that that kind of rarity usually brings.
Part of it is the sex appeal: the placid, sweet Running Mare and Foal don’t elicit the same visceral response the wild and studly Mustang does. The fan club for these pieces just isn’t that large. They’re not so rare - like the original regular run Buckskins - that their very elusiveness creates demand, either. They’re not the kind of things a "high spot" collector would seek out.
And the model horse market, at this moment and in this economy, seems to be driven primarily by a small coterie of "high spot" collectors. "High spot" is a term I’ve borrowed from the world of book collecting; it refers to collectors who specialize exclusively on rare, expensive and historically significant pieces, as opposed to collectors who seek to build a more well-rounded or representative collection.
True "high spot" Woodgrains would be items like the Old Mold Mare and Foal, Elephant, and Fury - items so rare and so scarce that virtually no documentation exists for them. The Old Mold Mare and Foal, Elephant, and Fury all easily fetch four-digit figures - and except for the Old Mold Mare’s cameo in the 1960 Montgomery Wards Christmas Catalog, there is a total absence of evidence for their existence, other than, you know, their actual existence.
The Old Mold Mare and Foal were regular run items, albeit extremely short-term ones, made in one or two batches before the mold switchover ca. 1959-60. (Until recently, it was speculated that the Woodgrain Old Mold Foal didn’t even exist, but we know better, now.) Others, such as the Buffalo and Polled Hereford Bull, appear to be special run exclusives for Dunning Industries’ Ranchcraft Lamp line.
But for pieces such as the Elephant and the Fury, I have no idea. My guess would be that they were extremely short-term regular runs, a la the Buckskin Running Mare and Foal, but that’s pure speculation on my part. Until more evidence surfaces, that’s all we have at this point.
Friday, April 13, 2012
FAS - Old Mold
(From Breyer History Diva, 2009.)
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2009
The Old Mold Stallion
The past 48 hours were rougher than expected; I'll just say that I'm feeling a little vulnerable right now. Nothing to do with you guys or the model horse world at all; if anything, this blog is one of the few things that's kept me from losing it completely. Words are one of the few things I have some control over.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
The Old Mold Mare is easily the most popular topic on this blog: anytime I write about her, I get a steady stream of appreciative comments and e-mail. But not a lot of love or attention has been given to her companion, the Old Mold Stallion.
I’m not referring to the Family Arabian Stallion that he became, but the model he was before.
There isn’t much difference between an Old Mold Stallion and a run-of-the-mill Family Arabian Stallion. Except for the extensive remodeling of his male anatomy (which didn’t occur until much later) most of the changes that were made to the model now known as the FAS were subtle, and probably the result of mold maintenance over its 50 year history.
The only thing that really distinguishes an Old Mold Stallion from an FAS is the mold mark: the FAS has one, and the Old Mold Stallion does not. Some Old Mold Stallions do have a very partial mold mark - you can just make out the “MOL” from the word MOLDING, but that’s about it.
Old Mold Stallions come in the same variety of colors that the Old Mold Mares and Foals do: Alabaster, Bay, Appaloosa and Woodgrain. Most hobbyists don't go out of their way to add Old Mold Stallions to their collections, though, so it's hard to tell if any one of these colors is more rare than the others; if they do happen to have one, it's either by sheer accident, or because he happened to tag along with the rest of his family.
There's some evidence that the Old Mold Stallion is probably a little more common than the Old Mold Mares and Foals. While he's very similar to the large Hagen-Renaker Amir, the match is not quite as close as the Mare and Foal are to Zara and Zilla. Unlike the Mare and Foal, who were yanked from production until suitable replacements were created, the FAS was probably allowed to continue production uninterrupted throughout 1959 and 1960.
The Old Mold Stallion probably premiered in 1959, about a year after the Old Mold Mare and Foal; I often wonder why that was. Was he an afterthought? Cash flow issues? Did they have problems with the mold? Or did they catch wind of the impending trouble brewing in California, and make some preemptive changes to the mold?
That's all speculation: there's no evidence for any of it. It could have been something as simple as a strong sales report: if the Mare and Foal are selling really well, just imagine if we added the Stallion!
But how does one go about acquiring this creature, especially on the Internet, where photographs and descriptions of dubious quality are the norm, if not the rule, and the presence or absence of a mold mark is rarely noted?
There are a few subtle distinctions in the paint jobs that can provide clues. Alabasters tends to have lipliner, and (more rarely) muscle shading; Appaloosas have the fine speckle spots, butt blankets and charcoal gray legs with black hooves; Bay usually have lipliner and eyewhites.
(Your eyes are not deceiving you: this fellah really does have factory shaded "boy parts"!)
It's no guarantee, of course: the Stallion never ceased production, and the paint jobs were never completely consistent. I've owned Old Mold Alabaster and Appaloosa Stallions with paint jobs indistinguishable from a run-of-the-mill FAS counterparts. If you do notice these characteristics in a model-of-interest, though, it'd definitely be worth your time to investigate him further.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
The Old Mold Mare is easily the most popular topic on this blog: anytime I write about her, I get a steady stream of appreciative comments and e-mail. But not a lot of love or attention has been given to her companion, the Old Mold Stallion.
I’m not referring to the Family Arabian Stallion that he became, but the model he was before.
There isn’t much difference between an Old Mold Stallion and a run-of-the-mill Family Arabian Stallion. Except for the extensive remodeling of his male anatomy (which didn’t occur until much later) most of the changes that were made to the model now known as the FAS were subtle, and probably the result of mold maintenance over its 50 year history.
The only thing that really distinguishes an Old Mold Stallion from an FAS is the mold mark: the FAS has one, and the Old Mold Stallion does not. Some Old Mold Stallions do have a very partial mold mark - you can just make out the “MOL” from the word MOLDING, but that’s about it.
Old Mold Stallions come in the same variety of colors that the Old Mold Mares and Foals do: Alabaster, Bay, Appaloosa and Woodgrain. Most hobbyists don't go out of their way to add Old Mold Stallions to their collections, though, so it's hard to tell if any one of these colors is more rare than the others; if they do happen to have one, it's either by sheer accident, or because he happened to tag along with the rest of his family.
There's some evidence that the Old Mold Stallion is probably a little more common than the Old Mold Mares and Foals. While he's very similar to the large Hagen-Renaker Amir, the match is not quite as close as the Mare and Foal are to Zara and Zilla. Unlike the Mare and Foal, who were yanked from production until suitable replacements were created, the FAS was probably allowed to continue production uninterrupted throughout 1959 and 1960.
The Old Mold Stallion probably premiered in 1959, about a year after the Old Mold Mare and Foal; I often wonder why that was. Was he an afterthought? Cash flow issues? Did they have problems with the mold? Or did they catch wind of the impending trouble brewing in California, and make some preemptive changes to the mold?
That's all speculation: there's no evidence for any of it. It could have been something as simple as a strong sales report: if the Mare and Foal are selling really well, just imagine if we added the Stallion!
But how does one go about acquiring this creature, especially on the Internet, where photographs and descriptions of dubious quality are the norm, if not the rule, and the presence or absence of a mold mark is rarely noted?
There are a few subtle distinctions in the paint jobs that can provide clues. Alabasters tends to have lipliner, and (more rarely) muscle shading; Appaloosas have the fine speckle spots, butt blankets and charcoal gray legs with black hooves; Bay usually have lipliner and eyewhites.
(Your eyes are not deceiving you: this fellah really does have factory shaded "boy parts"!)
It's no guarantee, of course: the Stallion never ceased production, and the paint jobs were never completely consistent. I've owned Old Mold Alabaster and Appaloosa Stallions with paint jobs indistinguishable from a run-of-the-mill FAS counterparts. If you do notice these characteristics in a model-of-interest, though, it'd definitely be worth your time to investigate him further.
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